


Something To Believe In

by pleasanthell



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 04:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasanthell/pseuds/pleasanthell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were happy living the three hours away from each other by train. You would go see each other on the weekends. Then Santana started missing weekends she was supposed to ride up Cambridge to see you. Sometimes she fell asleep before she called you. You needed to know what was going on so you asked her again. You asked Santana what was really going on. That’s when Santana let out a deep sigh and dropped the bomb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something To Believe In

You were happy living the three hours away from each other by train. You would go see each other on the weekends. Then Santana started missing weekends she was supposed to ride up Cambridge to see you. Sometimes she fell asleep before she called you.

You were starting to get worried when Santana tried to get you to stay in Cambridge on a weekend you was supposed to ride to New York. So the night before you were supposed to leave, you called Santana on video chat so you could see Santana was distracted so you called her out on it. You needed to know what was going on so you asked her again. You asked Santana what was really going on. That’s when Santana let out a deep sigh and dropped the bomb:

“Britt, I’m sick.”

She went on to explain what sick meant. It meant that something was happening with her body that no one could explain. The doctors didn’t know what was going on or how to fix it. There was something wrong with Santana’s blood and her heart. She’d been having small chest pains and she was tired all the time. She had some kind of intermittent tachycardia and slowly weakening walls. She didn’t tell you that it looked bad for her.

You both sat in your chairs looking at each other before you felt tears in your eyes. Then Santana started to cry. You told her you were coming to New York tomorrow no matter what.

When you saw her the next day at the train station, she did look different. She looked a little paler and her eyes were drooping. She looked exhausted. That’s when you decided to move to New York immediately. You were going to fix this. You knew you couldn’t live without her and you didn’t want her to be in pain. So you were going to fix it.

So you moved to New York. MIT was more than understanding. When you explained to the man at MIT what you were planing to do, they started throwing money at you. Grants, endowments, scholarships of all kinds. They told you that you could work from anywhere and that they would arrange for anything you needed. So far you only asked for a lab which they easily arranged the next day through NYU.

Santana’s parents moved to New York as well upon hearing what was happening to their daughter. Santana moved out of Kurt and Rachel’s apartment and into a tiny apartment with you. It was the only thing you could afford on such short notice. No one talked about how little time Santana may have had left, but you all seemed to agree that New York was where everyone would stay. Santana told you late that first night in the apartment that she wanted to be comfortable in the first city that she ever felt like she belonged with the first person who ever made her feel like herself. You waited until she fell asleep to cry.

You hover over her desk that is littered with textbooks. You sigh when the slight pressure in your head has turned into a full blown headache. You rub your eyes and turn in your chair to look at the bed behind you. You can see Santana in the wayward light of your desk lamp. Santana is holding your pillow under her arm and her head is resting on her pillow. You slowly rise from her desk and walk over to the bed. You kneel down next to the bed and kiss Santana’s forehead. You look over her face and commit every detail to memory. “I love you,” you whisper so you don’t wake your girlfriend.

Santana was always the one that protected you. You pretended not to notice all the people making fun of you in high school. You also pretended not to notice the bruises on Santana’s knuckles after someone made fun of you. You just hugged Santana extra long, or kissed her extra deep. She protected you in the best way she knew how. So you’re going to protect her now, in the best way you can figure out.

Then you stand back up and go back to your desk. You rub your eyes and open the next book.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

The next morning, you wake up. Your chest hurts. You groan and rub your chest as you sit up. You can already feel that today isn’t going to be a good day. A glance at the windows, tells you that the rain is going to keep you inside. Even though it’s unclear really what was wrong with you, the doctors tell you not to get too chilled or risk getting pneumonia which would only make whatever it is worse.

You look around yourself and see that Brittany actually made it to bed. On the desk you can see a few more textbooks in the “read” pile and a few less in the “to read” pile. But there will be more textbooks. You can also see the line of pill bottles that the doctors gave you to slow down whatever is happening, to even out your heartbeat and to try to fix whatever this is. Truth be told, you had lost all hope until Brittany started working on your mystery illness. But as much of a genius as Brittany is, and you always knew she was, experienced professionals have no idea what is wrong or even really how to fix it.

You lay down in bed and roll toward Brittany. You bury yourself in your girlfriend’s chest and feel Brittany’s arm slide around you. You close your eyes and press your forehead to Brittany’s chest. You’re scared. You can admit that much. But with Brittany here you know that you’re not wasting any time. If your lifespan is cut short, you know that you’re spending your time in the best way possible.

You feel Brittany kiss your forehead, “Good morning.”

“G’morning,” You mumble.

Brittany rubs your back, “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know,” You mumble, “It hurts a little.”

“Can I?” Brittany asks and sits up.

You know that Brittany wants to examine you. Sure Brittany is a genius, but she is more of a hands on kind of genius.

You roll onto your back and lay out ready for whatever Brittany wants to know. Brittany straddles you and gently feels your neck, checking your nodes, then down to your chest. She feels around the center of your breastplate for a few minutes before making a wrinkly face. Then she dips down and kisses you. She allows herself to fall to the side of you and wrap her arms around you. “I love you.”

You know this scares Brittany as well. Tough, brash Santana is now sick, frail Santana. You hate yourself a little bit for putting her through this, but you know she deserves to know in case something does happen. You close your eyes and hope to hide in the sanctuary of Brittany’s arms for a long as possible. “I love you too, B,” you tell her.

She lets you stay in her arms for as long as she can, but unfortunately there’s a knock on the door. Brittany kisses your head and crawls out of bed over you to get it, telling you to stay in bed.

You do stay in bed, but you listen. You hear Brittany says, “Oh hey, Maribel.”

“Good morning Brittany,” your mom says. “I brought over breakfast.” Your mom sounds hoarse. She’s sounded like that since you told her you were sick. You feel bad for making everyone you know feel like this. You just wish you could be better.

“These were in the mailbox too,” your mom tells Brittany.

“Great,” Brittany says. You hear the door close. You open your eyes and look across the apartment. It’s tiny so once your mom and Brittany get past the kitchen counter that keeps the kitchen and small table separated from the couch, coffee table, bed, and Brittany’s desk, you can see them. Your mom is carrying a paper bag and Brittany is carrying a box that she sets in her desk chair. She moves to the bed and sits down next to you, “Are you hungry?”

Your mom sets the bag on the coffee table. “I brought fruit and bagels.”

You sit up and nod. “I’m fine.” You move to the couch and sit down next to your mom. Brittany picks up two of the pill bottles on her desk and brings them to you. Your morning horse pills.

You take your pills under two sets of scrutinizing eyes. You tuck your feet under you as you eat breakfast with your mom and Brittany. You lean into your mom and she puts her arm around you. You reach behind yourself and grab Brittany’s hand. You place her hand on the small of your back. You used to have these urges to ask her to hold you or to just put her hands on you. These days you give in to urges like that a lot more.

“Te amo, Santana,” your mom whispers into your hair.

Brittany leans on you and wraps her arms all the way around your waist, her head resting on your side. You stroke her hair. You’re happy here with them, your favorite ladies.

Brittany moves her head to your chest. You keep stroking her hair and kiss her head.

You all watch the morning sitcoms for a while before Brittany sits up abruptly. She stares at the wall for a moment before shooting off of the couch and bounds to her desk. She picks up her box your mom brought in and rips the top open. She digs trough the box, tossing one of the books onto the bed before grabbing a book and dropping the box on the ground with a loud thud.

She sits down at her desk and flips open the book.

“Do you feel like going shopping?” your mom asks you when it becomes clear that you’ve lost Brittany to her research.

You nod.

You kiss Brittany goodbye and go with your mom. She hovers around you like you’re a frail old woman. You’re not though. Something is going wrong with your heart and your blood, but you can still walk.

When you get to your favorite area to shop in you hit a few stores before you can feel that weird thing in your chest. It hurts. You sit down on a couch in the back of the store and look down at your phone.

“Santana?” your mom calls. There’s some edge to her voice. You know after the first time you fainted, she panics when you’re together and she can’t find you.

“I’m here Mom,” you call back.

She appears through the clothing racks. “Are you okay?”

You nod, “I just had some pain.” You turn back to your phone. “Uh this is the app that Britt’s friend from MIT wrote for me.” You keep filling out the forms, “It asks me all these questions like what I was doing when the symptoms started, what kind of symptoms there are.” You finish and press the archive button. “It’s all sent right to Brittany’s laptop and filed in a custom program.”

“Everything Brittany is doing for you is impressive,” your mom says.

You nod. You just hope that it’s enough.

=+=+=+=+=

You decide to go home and check on Brittany around lunch time. You’re definitely not prepared for what is going on in your apartment. There are two more people there than there were before. One of them is your father and the other is one of Brittany’s friends from MIT.

The TV has been moved over a few feet and another one has been placed next to it. The guy from MIT is sitting on the couch with a computer in his lap, tapping way. Your dad is leaning over Brittany’s desk with his glasses on. He’s looking over some papers. Brittany is staring at the two tvs on the wall. On one side you see the archives that your symptoms are stored in. You can see the time and the date next to each one. On the other side you see a 3-D simulation of a human heart.

“What’s going on?” your mom asks.

Your dad looks up and over at you and your mom, “Brittany had the most brilliant idea for a cardio implant.” He flashes a smile before pointing to the TV with the heart on it.

“It’s not done yet,” Brittany bites her lip and walks over to her desk to scribble down something.

You rub your chest. You automatically open up your app and put in the information. There’s a ding in the room. Everyone looks up at the tv screen. There’s a little rectangle flashing on the archive tv that says “New Entry”. You look over at Brittany. She walks to the tv and crosses her arms. Her friend opens up the entry and she reads it over.

“Santana,” Brittany says. She beckons you over. When you get to her desk she picks up a stethoscope. She listens to your heart and then puts the stethoscope down. She looks you over and gives you a kiss. Then she goes to her friend and starts talking to him.

You’re getting tired so you sit on the bed.

“Honey are you okay?” your mom asks.

Everyone stops what they’re doing and looking at you. You nod, “I’m just tired.”

You adjust the pillows on the bed and lean back on them. You don’t want to lay down with all these people in your apartment.

“Why don’t you take a nap sweetheart?” your dad suggests, “If you’re up for it, Brittany and I would like to take you to the hospital for a cardio MRI. It’ll have more detail than the echo that was done last week.”

You really don’t want to go to the hospital again, but you know it’s for the best, “Fine.” You pull the pillows out of their stack and roll onto your side away from the rest of the apartment.

You hear Brittany’s friend say, “I’m going to go pick up that extra hard drive. Call me when you’re ready to start rendering the prototype.”

“Okay,” Brittany says, “Thanks.”

“Let’s go get some lunch,” your mom says.

You hear the door open and close. You’re not sure who left with her, but before you can roll over and see, you feel Brittany lay down behind you with her arm slipping around your waist. Brittany places a small kiss on the back of your neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” you push yourself back into her.

Brittany squeezes you, “Remember when we first met. Cheerios camp?”

You smile, “Yeah.”

“I knew we were going to be best friends,” she tells you. She kisses the side of your neck. “But I knew we were supposed to be more than that too.”

“Me too,” you answer. The second you saw Brittany you fell head over heels. Then you got to know her and knew you found your soulmate.”

“I’m sorry you had to leave Cambridge to come here,” you tell her.

You can feel her shake her head, “Don’t be sorry. I could have been anywhere and I would have come back here to you.”

You roll over under her arm and look into her eyes. “Am I going to be okay?”

She pulls you to her chest and tucks your head under her chin, “You will. I promise.”

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

You know Santana hates this hospital. Of course she does. It’s where they told her she was sick. It’s where they told her they didn’t know how to fix her.

You keep a protective arm around her and keep an eye out. As much as you know about the medications Santana is taking, you’ve gathered enough to know that her immune system is basically compromised. She’s an easy target for any sickness that is lurking in this hospital.

You don’t have to wait in the waiting room because of the high priority of Santana’s case and your contacts at MIT. They’re thrilled with your daily updates and keep promising you that they’ll take care of everything that you need.

Santana clings to you as you walk into an exam room with her parents. You know she’s scared. She doesn’t understand what’s going on and she’s not used to not having any control.

Santana paces the length of the exam room.

“Honey, you need to put the gown on,” Maribel tells Santana. She picks up the gown from the exam table.

Santana takes a deep breath. She slowly moves to the table and picks it up. “Britt,” she says, looking up at you.

You nod and step up with her. Maribel takes her husband and steps outside the exam room.

Santana looks at the gown on her hand. She wipes hard at her eyes and you know she’s fighting not to cry. You hate seeing her like this. This feeling is why you’re not sleeping. This feeling is why you’re doing everything you can to fix her.

When you pull her to you, she starts quietly sobbing. This is absolutely breaking your heart. Santana’s arms are between your chests and you can hear the gown crumpling as you pull her tighter. You know that there’s nothing you can say to make this any more bearable so you just hold her while she cries.

You don’t know how long she cries for, but when she stops, she pulls away. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

You look down at her and kiss her forehead, “It’s really okay.”

“I love you,” Santana looks into your eyes, deep, deep into your eyes. She’s been doing that a lot lately and it worries you. It’s like she wants you to really know before she….You shake your head. You’re not going to let that happen.

“I love you too,” you tell her. You kiss her.

Santana slowly starts to take off her clothes. You help her fold them so they won’t wrinkle. She wore sweatpants in anticipation of having to remove her clothes easily. She sits on the table while you help her take her wool lined boots off. Then her pants come off and she puts her boots back on.

You help her tie her gown at her side and then look at her to see how she’s handling this.

Her arms are crossed around her middle and you kiss the side of her head. “Do you want me to get your parents?”

She slowly nods. “Yeah.”

You put her arms around her. “I’m going take care of you, okay?”

She looks up at you, vulnerable and scared. But you see her realize that you’re promising her that. She kisses you, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’ll never have to know,” you offer her a smile.

She smiles back at you. You’re so excited to see her smile. Her smiles come so seldom lately that you cherish every one.

You go get her parents who are waiting with the MRI tech. Most people at the hospital know what’s going on with this case, not only Santana’s mystery illness, but the unlimited funds that MIT is throwing at you. It’s a hospital’s wet dream.

Santana insists on walking to the MRI machine. Santana’s dad negotiates with the nurse and eventually the nurse takes the wheel chair away. You hold Santana’s hand all the way to the MRI suite. They allow you and Dr. Lopez to stand behind the techs while Santana is in the machine. Maribel stays outside to make a phone call.

You’re holding Santana’s boots in your hand and watching her face carefully on the monitor. Her eyes are closed and she’s taking deep breaths. You want to go help her, but you know it will ruin the images. And you need these images.

Yes you have an idea for an implant, but you need to fine tune it. You’re not putting anything in Santana that’s not perfect.

Your eyes flicker to the monitor to your right. You can see the picture of Santana’s heart start to render on the screen. You cross your arms and bounce on your toes. The sooner you get this image, the faster you can get your implant put together.

=+=+=+=+=+=

You remember when things didn’t used to wear you out like this. You remember when you could go all day and all night and all the next day on just a few cups of coffee. Now you have to sleep every few hours or you feel like a zombie.

You wake up from your post-hospital nap to find Brittany standing in front of the two TVs in the living room. She’s tapping on the tablet in her hand and the numbers keep changing on the screens. You don’t know how she understands everything that’s on those screens. Well yeah you do. She’s a genius. Like you’ve been telling people your whole damn life.

You sit up in the bed and stand. You stretch and then walk over to Brittany. You put your arms around her waist and rest your chin on her shoulder. She smiles, “Did you sleep well?”

You nod, “Always do.”

She sets down her tablet and turns around to hold you. It’s not like you don’t love her touching you, but the way she holds you is different. It’s firm, but delicate, like you’ll break if she holds you too tight. You want things to go back to normal.

You look up at her, “Let’s go out.”

“Huh?” Brittany asks surprised.

“Let’s go out,” you tell her. “I want to be normal again. Just for tonight.”

She understands and nods, “Okay. Where do you want to go?”

You scan through the places in your brain. You think of going to a club. Getting dressed up and dancing with Brittany in a huge mass of people. But you don’t want to do that right now. Especially now that it’s easier for you to get sick, being in a large crowd of people wouldn’t be great.

Then it hits you. “I wanna dance.”

After a quick stop in Brooklyn, you and Brittany walk into the dark, empty halls of NYADA. Brittany looks curiously around while you’re looking at door numbers.

“How did Rachel get the keys to her school?” Brittany asks.

You spot the room. You’ve been here before, but it looks different at night. “When she had that huge audition for whatever that play was, her dance instructor gave her the keys so that she could practice after hours.” You unlock the door and push it open.

Brittany walks in first and you close the door behind the two of you. You put your bag down on one of the window sill and start taking things out while Brittany inspects the dance room.

When you’re done, you walk to the middle of the dance floor and wait for Brittany to look at you. You look down at the little remote in your hand and press the play button. Soft, soulful music starts floating through the room.

Brittany immediately turns around with a huge smile on her face. She walks over to you and sweeps you up in her arms. You smile against her shoulder. That was the least delicate hug she’d given you in a long time. She almost tackled you. You had to take a step back to keep yourself from falling, but you know that with Brittany’s arms around you, you’ll never fall.

“This is beautiful San,” Brittany tells you.

You look over her shoulder and see the candles reflecting in the windows and the mirrors. Without the overhead lights on, it’s beautiful.

“Dance with me,” you say in a breath.

You both easily find a relaxed, almost lazy ballroom dance position and then move slowly with the music. It’s soft and easy. When she twirls you and pulls you back, you take one too many steps closer to her so you can kiss her. This is normal. This is romantic and perfect. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s you and Brittany and music and candlelight. You can’t think of anything else you could ever need.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

When you get home from the studio, Santana has that sexy coy smile that she always has on when she’s feeling frisky. You smile because she hasn’t felt frisky since you moved to New York. You don’t blame her. You’re surprised she’s functioning at the level she is at being on all those medications.

She pulls you to her as she closes the door with her foot. You can feel one of her hands leave your neck to lock the door. Then she pulls your lips harder against hers. You’re surprised by the force of the kiss. She kisses you desperately.

Your hands rest on her back and then slide down to her ass. Your cup her ass and revel in the vibration of her moaning into your mouth. She loves it almost as much as you do. She always remembers the first time you met in the locker room, but you saw her before that. You happened to be behind her getting on the bus to Cheerio camp. It’s what made you first question your own sexuality. Of course it took you all of thirty seconds to accept your bisexuality. It took Santana a little longer, but that’s okay. She’s yours now.

You know that you need to get Santana onto the bed, not because she’s sick, but because it’s difficult for you to have your way with her when you’re both fully clothed and standing. So you move your hands down a little farther and pick her up.

She squeezes her legs on your sides and pushes up. You tilt your head up to keep kissing her. You move toward the bed and then sit down on the edge.

You take extra care to be sure that Santana reaches her highest highs. You need to make her feel great. You need to savor every second you’re allowed to worship her body.

She readily returns all the favors plus some. When she’s done though, she curls into you like she does every night and you hold her while you both fall asleep.

The next day, you spend thirteen hours in the lab at NYU. You’re making prototypes of the implant you want to put into Santana. With the help of some medical students and some PhD candidates you test out a few designs. None of them really work.

As you leave the lab, you pull your phone out of your pocket and call Santana.

“Hey,” she says. The tone of her voice worries you. She sounds hoarse.

“Are you okay?” you immediately ask.

She replies like she’s exhausted, “Yeah. Just waking up.”

“Oh I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?” you ask. You do feel really, really bad. She’s been so tired lately that you want her to get all the sleep she can get.

“Yeah, but I needed to get up anyway,” she says so you don’t feel bad.

“Are you hungry?” you ask. This was the reason that you called her in the first place, “I’m on my way home.”

“Yeah,” she says not very convincingly. “Just get me whatever you’re having.”

You look both ways before you cross the street toward your apartment. “Are you sure?”

You can hear sheets rustling around, “Yeah.”

After adjusting the heavy backpack on your shoulder, you ask, “Do you want anything special?”

“Can you grab some miso soup?” Santana asks you.

You smile, glad that she actually wants to eat instead of you and her mom having to make her eat. “Of course.”

When you bring home the food, you drop your keys onto the kitchen counter and close the door. You set your backpack down on the table and take the paper bag with you to the couch. Santana is sitting on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her. She looks exhausted, staring blankly at the tv.

You sit down next to her and put her soup on the table. You wrap your arms around her. Her condition right now is a blatant reminder of why you’re sacrificing sleep and dedicating your entire life to this implant. You want her to not feel like crap anymore.

“What did you do today?” you ask her, although you think you know.

“After I figured out how to work our new TV set up, I watched season three of Sweet Valley High,” she says softly. “And I talked to Quinn.”

“What did she say?” you ask her, rubbing her shoulder.

Santana reaches for the paper bag. She extracts her soup, “She said that she wants to come to New York and see us. We talked about how school is for her.” There’s an edge to Santana’s voice. You know she wants to have a life. A real life where she can go back to her job and dance and she has talked about going to school. You just want her to be happy again.

You reach into the bag and dig out her spoon. You open it for her. When you hand it to her, you kiss her cheek.

“Where’s your food?” Santana asks you after opening her soup and taking the first bite.

You completely forgot about yourself. You were just so excited that Santana was going to eat. So you say the first thing you come up with, “I wanted to get at those enchiladas that your mom made.”

“They’re still in the refrigerator,” she tells you. “I can’t eat them right now.”

“I know,” you slowly run your hand up and down her back, “Soon though.”

You get up and walk to the refrigerator. You’re actually glad that you didn’t pick anything up at the restaurant because Maribel’s enchiladas are the best. You don’t even warm it up. You take the pan and a fork with you to the couch and sit next to Santana.

You ‘mmm’ as you eat and Santana smiles. You offer her a bite which she takes. She refuses more, but that one makes you happy.

She leans over and kisses the side of your neck. She sets her soup on the coffee table and stands, “I’m going to go take a shower.”

You nod, “Can I…join you?”

She smiles, “Of course.”

You take another bite of enchiladas and stand. There is still more than half a pan of enchiladas, “I’m going to put this up.”

“I’ll go start the shower,” Santana says and saunters off into the cramped bathroom you share.

You walk back to the coffee table and peer into the paper bowl Santana’s soup came in. She barely ate any of it. You bite your lip then take a deep breath. Perhaps you were too soon to be excited about her appetite.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

Brittany has started being gone a lot during the day. When she gets home she stays with you and she’ll get in bed when you’re ready to sleep, but you know that as soon as you pass out she gets up and starts working again.

You worry about her. You know she’s working to keep you alive. You know that your condition is deteriorating. You can see it in your mother’s eyes and your father’s frown. You can feel it. You’re more tired. You have to take more medications just to keep you functional. You can feel how bad it’s getting when Brittany kisses you. There’s something about the way she lingers in the kiss that’s sad.

You still feel bad putting her through this. You’re the reason she doesn’t sleep and you hate yourself for that. You hate your body for giving up. You don’t understand. You don’t smoke. You’ve worked out since high school. You eat as well as you can. It doesn’t make sense for you to have this happening to you. Quinn is the one that ate her car’s weight in bacon and Puck smoked and drank the most out of anyone you knew. Finn has been known to sleep for forty-eight hours straight. Of all the people you’ve taken care of yourself. Yet you’re the one that’s slowly deteriorating.

Now you’re the one lying in bed, watching your girlfriend do everything she can to fix you. Brittany is a genius, but now – right now, you think that maybe it’s beyond even her help. It’s weird when you come to the realization that you might die. You might die because of something no one can fix.

You take her pillow and hold it to your chest. You watch her read something and then make a note on her laptop. Then you see her look down at a paper on the desk and sketch something. She picks up one of the weird little things that she says are implants, and look it over. She has a line of them across her desk, all varying in shape. Most of them are tube shaped with a few being half circles and one is a straight line. You don’t understand what they’re supposed to do, but you trust Brittany. With your life.

You pick up a book from the nightstand, one that’s not a textbook, and read for a while. You yawn a few chapters in and Brittany turns around. She runs a hand through her hair, “How long have you been up? Are you okay?”

“I’ve been up for a while,” you glance at the clock, “Maybe forty-five minutes. I’m fine.”

Brittany looks back at her desk and closes her laptop. She stands up and walks over to the bed. She lays down next to you and presses herself against your side.

You lay on your back and put your arms around her. Brittany rests her head on the left side of your chest and deflates. She’s got to be tired. You rub her back and kiss the top of her head, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she echoes.

You feel her fingers rubbing your right side. Moments like this are ones that you love. Moments like this are ones that you know you _have_ to cherish now. Just in case there aren’t many more in your future.

You spend a lot of time by yourself while Brittany is in the lab, thinking about your own mortality. You’re not afraid of death. You’re afraid of what happens to what you leave behind. You worry about your parents who would be losing their only child. But you worry most about Brittany. Your parents have each other. Brittany has her parents, but it’s not the same. Your parents would understand each other’s loss. No one would understand the kind of loss Brittany would endure. You and Brittany are connected in a special way. You’re best friends and you’re lovers. She’s not your other half. She’s your soul.

You feel tears building up in your eyes. If you can do anything about this, you’ll fight. You’ll fight on days where it hurts to move. You’ll fight on days you can’t even get out of bed. You’ll live for the people that love you. You’ll live for your parents who gave you everything you could ever want. You’ll live for Brittany who loves you more than you could ever even fathom. You’ll live for yourself and all the experiences you have yet to have with all of them.

You’re sure that Brittany is asleep when she abruptly sits up. She jumps out of bed and runs to her desk.

“Brittany what’s wrong?” you ask her, sitting up.

She turns around and smiles at you with a huge smile. “Nothing.” She turns back to you , “I have it. I know how to make the implant work.”

You can’t help, but smile as well. You love that grin on her face and that look in her eyes. That looks gives you one thing that you haven’t had in a while. Hope.

+=+=+=+=+=+=

You’ve made five implants in the lab. They’re all sterile and in sterile bags on the counter. It’s time to test it again. You’ve gone through at least fifty prototypes trying to tweak it so that it’s perfect. MIT keeps trying to get you to make it more generic so it can be implanted in more people, but right now you’re making it just for Santana. You can help other people after you help her.

The medical students hover behind you as you set up the prototypes in the artificial test heart. You secure it like you would in Santana’s heart and then step back to the control panel. You let your friend from MIT work all the electrical things. Some of the PhD candidates don’t like it, but any little thing could change the outcome and you need experts working their field of expertise.

He starts the test you all watch the prototype attached to the artificial heart work perfectly. You smile and turn to your friend. He looks up at you from his screens and smiles back. He knows how important this is to you and you’re excited.

So excited that you decide to take a lunch break for the first time in weeks, instead of eating out of a vending machine while standing in front of a chalk board. You have a good test. You still have to run more tests, but you can feel it. This is the one.

You squint when you step into the sunlight. The labs in the basement don’t give you a lot of light comparable to that of the actual sun, so it’s always kind of a shock to your eyes when you leave during the day. Of course you don’t leave during the day often.

Your phone pings in your pocket and you pull it out. You frown when you see three missed calls. Then you watch your phone finally find a full signal instead of the spotty one it gets in the basement labs. Just as you’re opening the missed call list, your phone rings.

You smile when you see it’s Maribel. You can’t wait to tell her the good news. “Hey,” you say cheerfully.

“Brittany,” the tone of her voice automatically makes your stomach drop. “We’re at the hospital. I went to check on Santana and she was… unconscious.”

You take off running toward the hospital, “I’ll be right there.”

You almost get hit by a few cabs and actually did run into a man in a suit who yelled obscenities at you as you run off. You don’t care. You have to get to the hospital. You have to get to Santana.

You hate yourself for leaving her alone. You hate yourself for not staying home when she decided to go back to bed after breakfast. You hate yourself for not knowing this was going to happen. What is the point of being a genius if you can’t stop the people you love from hurting?

As you run, you hear Maribel tell you that they’re in ICU. You know where that is inside of the hospital. So you don’t stop in the waiting room. You run through the hallway, slowly down only slightly so you don’t hurt anyone.

You careen around the corner of the ICU with a few security guards on your tail, but you’re faster and you’re going to get to Santana. You see Dr. Lopez in the doorway of a room and stop cold behind him. You touch his back and he falls away from the door. He spots the guards chasing you and stops them from following you into the room.

You almost throw up when you see Santana laying in the bed with her eyes closed. There are tubes and wires coming off of her. You walk to the bed and place your hand on her arm. It’s warm and that’s comforting. The monitors around the bed send you searching through your brain for what that tells you. You look across the unconscious Santana to Maribel.

You just then realize that you’re both still on the phone. You hang up and shove the phone in your pocket.

One of the doctors that has been overseeing Santana’s case walks in with a grim look on his face. She needs surgery and she needs it as soon as possible. They want to operate on her heart to see if they can patch it enough to give them more time to find a more permanent solution. However, the patch is risky. The surgery itself is risky because of her weakened state. It’s not really sure if she’d make it off of the table.

Santana’s parents are both crying. You just hear a whirling in your ears. You’re out of time. You feel sick and barely make it to the trashcan in the corner before throwing up.

Everyone looks to you. You’re the one leading the charge to stop Santana’s destruction. You fear that your leadership wasn’t enough. You explain to them what happened earlier today. You explain that you have prototypes, but you wanted to test it more. You wanted to make it perfect.

“It may be the only shot we have,” the doctor says and suddenly you feel fiercely inadequate. You feel stupid like you did in high school. You feel like you shouldn’t have been the one doing this. You should have let someone else do it.

You send for the implants that you have. Your friend promises to bring them straight over. Dr. Lopez and Maribel argue quietly in Spanish, in the corner of the room while you sit next to Santana.

You hold Santana’s limp hand in both of yours and press your lips to the side of her fingers. Tears trickle down your face. You already feel like you let her down. The hopes of Santana living now rest on your shoulders. Those hopes are crushing you.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper to her.

You tilt your head down and rest your forehead against your joined fingers. Everything comes rushing back at you. All the feelings of hope you had are crushed by doubt. You think of everything wrong with your design. How it might have been better and how you’ll never know because you didn’t work efficiently enough to make other designs before Santana needed it.

“Britt.”

Your eyes shoot to Santana. You didn’t notice that her hand is weakly gripping your own. You see Santana’s head turned slightly toward you. Her eyes are half open.

“What happened?” she asks like it’s painful for her to speak.

Her parents are at her other side quickly. Maribel answers, “I found you unconscious in your apartment.”

Santana holds your eyes for a moment before looking at her parents. She asks a few quiet questions and listens as her parents explain what has to happen soon, if not immediately. Your friend from MIT shows up and as Dr. Lopez is explaining what the options are. You take the implants from him. You look them over in your hands and wish you could test them some more.

As you’re looking, the cardiologist walks in. He spots what’s in your hand and is immediately fascinated. You let him look them over with your friend while you go back to the bed.

Dr. Lopez steps to the cardiologist to look over your design. You sit down next to Santana. She looks at you and takes your hand. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” you say back. It is almost unreal to you how sad her words made you. Usually her declarations of love elate you, but that time…it felt like she was trying to tell you one last time.

“C’mere,” she says, the words carried out on a breath.

You move closer to her and kiss her lightly on the lips. She hums against your lips. When you pull away she says something that you’re not sure you hear right.

“What?”

She smiles lazily, “Marry me.”

You blink. “Right now?”

She nods, “Right now. I’ve wanted to ask you for… a long time. I want to ask you before my surgery.”

You nod vigorously, “Of course. Yes.” You feel tears run down your cheeks, “I love you.”

Maribel finds a minister in the hospital and you use Santana’s parents’ wedding bands. Santana weakly repeats the words of the minister and slips her mother’s ring onto your finger. Then you say the words through a cascade of tears and slip her dad’s ring on her left ring finger. It’s obviously too large for her delicate finger, but she pulls you into a kiss before the minister tells her to.

“Thank you,” Santana whispers as you pull away.

You rest your forehead on her, “I would have married you in high school.”

“Now you tell me,” she smirks.

The beeping of the monitor changes. You can hear it. The cardiologist can hear it. Santana even seems to notice. “What does that mean?”

“It means we need to start talking about the surgery,” the cardiologist says. He looks at you. “May I have a word with you?”

You nod and stand, kissing your wife before you step away. You refuse to leave the room so you talk quietly in the corner.

He’s holding your implant, “This is brilliant. And as far as I can tell it’s just what Santana needs.” He pauses which makes you think there’s bad news. He adds, “I talked to your friend. You’re the only one that knows how to…implement this.”

You take a deep breath. You know rationally and logically that he’s right, but the thought of actually _implementing_ your device into Santana makes you lose your breath.

“I know it’s unorthodox and against policy, but this case is special and this device,” he holds up your implant in the sterile wrap, “Is absolutely special. She’ll barely make it another day if we don’t do this now.”

You look over at Santana who is laying in the hospital bed. You see the ring on her left hand. She moved it to her index finger so it would fit better. She’s your greatest love. And now she’s your wife. You have to do everything possible to make her better.

“Okay,” you nod. “When are we going to do it.”

“The OR opens up at seven fifteen,” he tells you.

“Okay,” you nod again. You feel stunned. You feel overwhelmed. This is all happening so fast. Just mere hours ago you found that your device works exactly like you designed it to. But you wanted to test it more. You wanted to be one hundred percent sure.

The cardiologist shows you the latest scans of Santana, proving to you that it’s now or never. When the surgeons arrive you have to go with them to make a plan. They don’t want to do it in the room as to alarm the Lopezes. You have to agree.

You kiss Santana and promise to be back before she goes into surgery. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she smiles sleepily.

You kiss her lips again and then kiss her forehead. The you go meet with the doctors. The surgeons are very impressed with your device and you all go over how you implant it.

They tell you that they’re going to make it as easy as you to do it. There will be a curtain between Santana’s face and you. The rest of her that isn’t being operated on will be covered as well. They want to you try to separate yourself from the situation. They want you to pretend that you’re implementing this in the lab and not in an operating room on your girlfriend – wife.

You hang out in Santana’s room with her and her parents until the nurses come to get her. Then you go to the doctor’s lounge to change into some scrubs. You wash your hands next to the surgeons and follow them to the operating room. You take deep breaths at the door and then step in.

They’ve already started. Santana’s chest is already open. The skin you love to kiss has already been sliced open. You feel sick again, but you steel yourself again it. This is Santana’s last chance and it has to work.

When they call you, your hands are shaking. You shake them out and then pick up implant, talking yourself down. You’re in the lab. This heart isn’t real. The machine around you aren’t there. Your colleagues from NYU are standing around you.

You affix it to the device to her heart and watch as the surgeons slowly start to let the implant work. And it does start working. You let out a deep sigh and pull your hands back. When you look down at your hands, you’re no longer in the lab. You’re in the operating room. That blood on your hands is Santana’s. You run out of the room and throw up in the nearest waste basket.

A nurse asks you if you’re okay and you tell her that you just operated on your wife. You rip off your gloves and throw them in the biohazard bin. You’re still freaking out. You shake your head and start pacing. You take a few steps away then run back to the waste basket to throw up again.

The nurse promises to take care of the mess while you look through the operating room door. You watch the surgeons mill around. You can see the monitors and Santana is stable.

You cross your arms and start to walk away to tell Santana’s parents how it went when you hear the high pitched beeping. You push open the door and slip inside. No one notices because another beeping joins the first. The surgeons start moving around more quickly than before. They start yelling out orders. They start raising their voices. You hear someone say that she’s crashing.

You’re spotted a second later and you’re pulled out of the room by nurses. You’re so shocked that you can’t speak. You can’t demand to know what’s going on. You just feel yourself being pulled into the waiting room.

“Is there someone else here with you?” the nurse asks.

You nod, “My…my girl-wife’s parents.”

“Let’s go find them okay?” the nurse says with a kind smile.

You finally shake out of your own head, “No. I want to know what’s going on.”

“You can’t go back in there,” he says.

“I have to,” you start to cry. You point to the hallway you just walked out of, “My… my idea is in her and she’s… crashing.”

“You should probably stay with your in-laws,” he tells you softly.

You shake your head, “No. I can’t- If my…if my implant is killing her… if it kills her…I can’t…” You can’t ever be in the same room with them again. You can’t… you don’t know how you’d live with yourself.

He seems to understand. “Here. I’m going to take you to the doctor’s lounge. I’ll go see what’s going on.”

So you sit in the doctor’s lounge, waiting. And waiting. And more waiting. When the door opens you immediately stand. The nurse says from the doorway. “They closed her up. She’s stable, but…” He scratches his neck, “They won’t know until she wakes up.”

“When will she wake up?” you ask walking out the door.

“You’ll have to ask the doctors.”

You make your way to Santana’s room. She’s on the bed, her chest wrapped in gauze. Your eyes immediately go to the monitors. Her heartbeat is a little less than you’d like it to be but, it’s working. Maribel stands up from her place next to Santana when she sees you. She immediately pulls you into a hug.

You hug her back, clinging to her. You close your eyes and pray that Santana will be okay. You can feel her praying too.

“When is she going to wake up?” you ask, sniffling.

One of the surgeons you were in the OR with is standing in the doorway so you and Santana’s parents look to him. He folds his hands in front of himself, “When she’s ready.”

So you stare at the monitor while you lean on the bed, holding Santana’s hand. You don’t know how long you’ve been there. It gets dark outside and then Santana’s dad falls asleep. Maribel isn’t far behind him. Maribel’s head is on the bed and Dr. Lopez’s hand is on the top of Santana’s head.

Your sleep schedule is so messed up though that you can’t even think about going to sleep for at least another six hours. And that’s assuming that you actually want to go to sleep.

You’re holding Santana’s left hand and you keep playing with the ring on her hand that’s still too big for her index finger. You keep spinning it around her finger.

You look up at the monitors and memorizing the patterns and numbers. You find an algorithm in her heartbeat that doesn’t mean anything because she’s not awake.

She’s alive though. That’s good. You start going over everything that could go wrong now.  She could have a bad reaction to the device. Her body could completely reject it. It could stop working. It could break. Although you’re not sure how it would break. She could get into a car accident and her chest could be struck so hard that it breaks. Of course there would be other problems with a car accident. You’d worry about head trauma then.

“Some honeymoon huh?”

You whip your eyes over to Santana. She’s got a lazy smile on her face as she looks at you.

Tears start to pour out of your eyes, “You’re okay.”

=+=+=+=+=+=+

You uncharacteristically giggle when Brittany tries to pin you down. “I’m fine.”

“I want to check,” she says with a playful smile.

“I’m fine,” you say again. “Some genius put something in my heart to make it work again.”

“Some genius?” she asks, sitting on your stomach. She puts the stethoscope in her ears and places the cold metal on the thin star that runs down your chest.

It still blows your mind how she made something so sophisticated for you. She saved your life. She spent hours and hours reading, researching, and consulting with other scientists to make it happen. She did it. She made something that is inside your heart at all time, keeping it working correctly.

And she wouldn’t take a penny for a patent on the device she made. She didn’t want other people who may have what you have to die because they can’t afford it or they couldn’t get access to it. She’s such a beautiful person.

You smile lovingly up at her and then grab her shirt, pulling her down into a forceful kiss. She hums against your lips and you full on smile. Then you break the kiss. You take the stethoscope out of your genius’s ears and set it aside, “Am I in working order, doctor?”

She rolls her eyes, “I’m not a doctor.” Then she steals a quick kiss, “but yes. Everything is working perfectly.”

“So can we go enjoy our honeymoon on the beach or are you going to examine me further?” you ask coyly.

She laughs then kisses you. “How about I _examine_ you on the beach?”

You both get up and put on your bikinis. Then you walk out of your private villa on the French Riviera. You hold her hand as you walk down to the beach without shoes. When your feet hit the water, Brittany whirls you around and your lips crash together. Her hands on the small of your back pull you hard against her. You place your hands on the sides of her face and smile, but this time deepen the kiss. This is how it’s supposed to be. You and your wife enjoying your honeymoon on the beach.


End file.
